ed tares, like Satan in the text:
This makes a foe most fatal to the state;
A foe who (like a wizard in his cell)
In his dark cabinet of crooked schemes,
Resembling Cuma's gloomy grot, the forge
Of boasted oracles, and real lies,
(Aided, perhaps, by second-sighted Scots,
French magi, relics riding post from Rome,
A gothic hero(48) rising from the dead,
And changing for spruce plaid his dirty shroud,
With succour suitable from lower still,)
A foe who, these concurring to the charm,
Excites those storms that shall o'erturn the state,
Rend up her ancient honours by the root,
And lay the boast of ages, the rever'd
Of nations, the dear-bought with sumless wealth
And blood illustrious, (spite of her La Hogues,
Her Cresseys, and her Blenheims,) in the dust.
How must this strike a horror thro' the breast,
Thro' every generous breast where honour reigns,
Thro' every breast where honour claims a share!
Yes, and thro' every breast of honour void!
This thought might animate the dregs of men;
Ferment them into spirit; give them fire
To fight the cause, the black opprobrious cause,
Foul core of all!--corruption at our hearts.
What wreck of empire has the stream of time
Swept, with her vices, from the mountain height
Of grandeur, deified by half mankind,
To dark oblivion's melancholy lake,
Or flagrant infamy's eternal brand!
Those names, at which surrounding nations shook,
Those names ador'd, a nuisance! or forgot!
Nor this the caprice of a doubtful die,
But Nature's course; no single chance against it.
For know, my lord! 'tis writ in adamant,
'Tis fixt, as is the basis of the world,
Whose kingdoms stand or fall by the decree.
What saw these eyes, surpris'd!--Yet why surpris'd--
For aid divine the crisis seem'd to call,
And how divine was the monition given!
As late I walk'd the night in troubled thought,
My peace disturb'd by rumours from the north,
While thunder o'er my head, portentous, roll'd,
As giving signal of some strange event,
And ocean groan'd beneath for her he lov'd,
Albion the fair! so long his empire's queen,
Whose reign is, now, contested by her foes,
On her white cliffs (a tablet broad and bright,
Strongly reflecting the pale lunar ray)
By fate's own iron pen I saw it writ,
And thus the title ran:

THE STATEMAN'S CREED.

"Ye states! and empires! nor of empi